(open source,funny) film versus digital: nice analogy used to illustrate the open source model

http://advice.cio.com/bernard_golden/designing_a_new_software_distribution_process

"Honestly, if you proposed the film work-flow today, you'd be taken to the city square and hung. Imagine I told you we're going to shoot on superexpensive cameras, using rolls of celluloid made in China that are a one-time use product susceptible to scratches and that can't be exposed to light. And you can't even be sure you got the image until they're developed. And you have to dip them in a special fluid that can ruin them if it's mixed wrong. People would think I was crazy."

and

...imagine I told you "Someone is going to create a software product, spend as much selling it to you as you pay the first year, refuse to let you try it enough to determine whether it will really work in your environment, keep the internal code secret and not let you examine it, forbid you from publishing benchmarks so that its performance can be compared to other products, charge 20% of the initial price each year for maintenance whether you need it or not, and potentially pull it from the market due to internal business reasons with no possibility for you to do anything about it. Oh, and by the way, if they do keep in the market, they may come up with mandatory upgrades requiring additional fees." People would think I was crazy.